General Update - Sound System

Not much new on the building scene as I have parts on order, or am waiting to order parts. Keith at Resin Parts is still setting up shop in his new home and has a line of parts orders waiting, so I want to give him time before I bombard him with my wish list.

Foot motor holders are due to deliver today. Shoulders are on order from the most recent A&A parts run, and my 12v power distribution board is in process, due sometime in June.

There has been alot of buzz around the R2 community regarding a much less expensive CFIII soundboard, or rather a knock-off of a CFIII. Thanks to Andy S. for his research on this!!! I did order and receive the personal soundtrack t-shirt from thinkgeek and it works great!!! I still need to order my 12ch wireless remote to trigger the sounds, but that will have to wait. I didn't really expect to order the soundboard so soon, but couldn't pass this one up. I have 6 banks configured for voicing based off of the CFIII sound files. I'm still converting the files to mp3 format, but since many of them are short files, I have taken my time to combine and edit some of them into longer clips.

On a side note, I have finally set up my own space in the house to display my Sci-fi stuff. For so long, the wife has dominated the decor of the household, and the lightsabers, action figures and other fine collectibles have been pushed to the Outer Rim - or at least in boxes in the basement... But now, I have space and together we will rule that room as builder and droid.... (queue vinyl record scratching to a halt!)

Well... at least I have shelving.

Thanks to my wife and her mad decorating skills - it looks awesome. I took some quick shots, but it doesn't do justice. There are framed posters on the walls and furniture that I didn't include in the shots.

One Leg Done

Well, that's down... I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I still have to finish a couple coats of paint sometime this week, but other than that, I'm calling this part done. I'll be ordering parts this week, including the layered shoulders. I'm waiting to hear on a resin supplier so I can order the booster covers, among many other parts needed for the body. I have styrene left over, and I'm still deciding if I should work with plywood for part of the ankle or layer styrene and follow Dave E's plans. It's going to come down to what material is stronger.

Here's the updated pics.

More Leg Work/PIC Flash

I continued a little further on the legs. The shoulder area is skinned as well as the under shoulder detail and part way down the leg. There is a break in the skins for some detail and I think I'm going to stop at that point until I order and receive my boosters. I'll get the front and rear skins mounted to those details and call it quits on this one. Time to start the other leg, now that I know what I'm doing.

As requested, here is a photo of the PIC flasher board. This was taken prior to testing and only one power source is connected (2nd 9v power was added later during testing - one to run the LEDs, the other powered the PIC) When testing, output was working on 4 of the 8 outputs (I think r1, r2, r7 and r8...). I'll have to test again and document prior to calling Carl's - if it comes to that.

More leg work and electronics

I was holding off on this post until I had something more complete to show. I've been working and continue to work on the first leg. Ran into a minor problem as I followed some plans for the styrene build, but didn't take into consideration that the weight of my frame would be somewhat heavier than a styrene frame would be. I've been debating back and forth and bouncing questions off of other builders (thank you Calvin and Cole for your help!!) to get a direction. I've decided to move forward with my existing part and try to strengthen it, rather than start over. I've started reinforcing and filling areas of the leg to beef up potential stress points and make the leg more solid - well, literally.

I doubled the bracing around the top of the shoulder and added additional bracing to create pockets within the leg to fill with spray foam. By feel, the leg has some more weight to it and the foam adds considerable reinforcement to the bracing. Here are some pics:





After letting the foam set for a couple days and noting that the expansion has stopped, I was able to mount the top (outer) panel to the leg and let is sit under weight for several hours until the glue set. I then glued up the first styrene strip around the shoulder. I'll let that set over night and continue tomorrow on some of the other skins. I will need to spot putty this when done to correct some cutting mistakes, but so far, I'm happy with how it turned out.

I assembled my first pic flasher and ran into issues there too. I have proper voltage throughout the pic but I'm only getting output from 4 of the 8 traces. I've only connected a couple LED's and tested with a meter. Not sure if this is at all related to the defective crystal issue that was going on, but I may be calling Carls.

Leg work

I've been busy over the past two weeks working on the first of three legs. It's rough, but it also doesn't have the final layer of skin/bondo to smooth it out. I chose to continue the styrene construction and scratch build my legs from 1/4" styrene material. Ankles will follow once I have both outer leg sections built. I was given a piece of 6" schedule 40 pvc piping that could work for the leg to body hub. I haven't decided if I'm going to use pipe or not.

Anyway, here's some progress pics.

Artoo Portrait - General Update

I found some old photo equipment that I had packed away so I decided to do Artoo's first portrait shot. I received my 1/4" styrene sheets that I'm going to make the legs from, which came in handy and a reflector for the photo.

Parts update - I now have all of my leds for my front logics. The leds from the rear logics are still stuck in transit from West Florida Components, but the staff is awesome at keeping me updated.

So... between the logics and leg construction, I have my work cut out for me for the next couple months.

More Dome Work - Almost There...

It's almost done!!!

I haven't had much time, but I've worked here and there over the past week or so and I am almost done with the dome. I ordered my leds for the front and rear logics. I expect the rear logic leds to arrive any day now. Front leds are coming from China and shipped last week, so it will be another week or two for those to arrive. My pic flashers arrived already and I have the bezels for both front and rear.

I picked up some Plumbers Goop this weekend to mount the HP's and they're holding solid. Thanks to Cole for the tip!!

I also finished off some unpainted areas and ran into issues with the chrome paint. Go figure. First layer went on pretty good. Second layer stripped the first layer, so I resorted to hand painting and it turned out pretty well. I'm not adding the ROTJ red led panel to the side of the dome at this time. That may be a future upgrade, but for right now, simple is fine.

My front HP is movable and the motion is smooth. I plan on lighting it and adding at least one servo for motion.

I've also started work again on mounting the skins. I don't want them to be permanent and I'm taking Calvin's recommendation for the variable depth push fasteners from Lowes.

Here's some updated pics.